Tyre changes suit Red Bull the best

Since then the numbers are three wins in four race for the blues team and zero for the red squad.

After Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix – dominated from pole position by Vettel ahead of Alonso with the rest absolutely nowhere – the mood in the paddock was one of utter dejection. The overall consensus is that it is only a matter of time before Vettel takes his fourth straight title.

The reasons for the change in rubber specifications on safety grounds are well known. The downside is that where the championship fight was finely poised after 12 with Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen effectively within a win of leader Vettel, the situation has totally turned.

In just four races the gap to Alonso has more than doubled from 21 points to 53 despite the 2005/6 champion having taken two seconds a fourth and fifth. Raikkonen and his Lotus team admit they are now out of the running although there are still seven races (175 points) to play for.

Where Kimi was once able to mix it at the sharp by dint of his superior tyre management skills he was lost at Monza, running mostly out of the top 10 after qualifying 11th. He was forced to pit on lap one to replace a nose cone damaged in the opening lap melee, but on the old tyres Kimi would surely have made up for lost places.

Another team to suffer is Force India, which initially voted against any change in tyre specification. The team believed (rightly, as it turns out) that it had optimised its car around the tyre data supplied ahead of the season by Pirelli, and had used its statutory votes to block any change.

The team’s objections were eventually overturned and the change forced through on safety grounds. The result?

In the eight races to Silverstone the Force India team took home an average of eight points per race. Since the team has scored only two points in four races.

Bad luck and collisions have played their parts, but not to that extent. While Force India may not be a front-runner, Formula 1 is about doing the job better than the next team, and in terms of tyre management it was right up there only to eventually be penalised.

In the process Force India has slipped from challenging Mercedes and beating McLaren (with all three using Mercedes power) in the constructors championship to now being well adrift of both. The long and short of its is that Red Bull Racing, which complained long and hard and loudly about the concept of rapidly degrading tyres, looks set to bring an early end to the season.

At this rate it could all be over by Japan, three races hence. Championships have been decided much earlier but seldom have they closed to such a degree at the halfway mark. Previously potential dominance has been evident from the off.

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel drives at the Autodromo Nazionale circuit in Monza on September 8. The German won the Italian Grand Prix for his sixth win of the season.

This year Vettel scored his first ‘proper’ win in Malaysia. His first victory of the season came through his infamous team order disobeyance in Malaysia.

The entire affair smacks of 2003 when Williams and Ferrari went head-to-head, and Michelin produced the better tyre which enabled the British cars to take the fight to the Bridgestone-shod Ferraris. The Scuderia raised its objections to a dimensional loophole exploited to good effect by the French tyre company, causing the rule to be ‘clarified’ after Hungary.

Thereafter Ferrari won every single race, knocking the stuffing out of Williams – which went downhill thereafter losing engine partner BMW and then sponsors. While a similar fate is unlikely to befall Ferrari, the fact remains that they are tasting some of their own medicine with the beneficiaries Red Bull Racing and Vettel.

The real casualty is the championship fight and, as always, the ultimate losers are the fans.